Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel)

by Maegan Beaumont

  Physically, Bethany Edwards looked nothing like her, so the killer wasn’t choosing his victims off anything she could see in the mirror. She was years younger, lived miles away … how would she find his next victim without a starting point?

  Out of the shower, she dried off before wrapping the towel around her middle and retrieving her gun from the back of the toilet. She had the bathroom door open and both feet across the threshold before she realized she wasn’t alone. Her SIG swung up, training on the figure framed by the window. “Turn around slowly and get your hands where I can see them.” Her heart was hammering so fast it felt like she was being punched in the chest—a rhythmic pounding that left her dizzy and slightly out of breath.

  The figure turned, giving her a good look at his face. Her arms fell to her sides, the gun dangling from her hand, its weight the only thing keeping her from being carried away by the sudden storm that raged inside her.

  Michael stood no more than ten feet away, a red envelope in his hand.

  FORTY-SIX

  “Are you hurt?”

  Eight months gone and that’s all he had? It was a stupid thing to say, and the look she gave him told him so. Michael shifted in his boots, forcing himself to meet her gaze directly.

  “You really shouldn’t be here,” she said, her expression carefully schooled into a look so passive she made the Dalai Lama look like a rage-drunk lunatic. He’d seen that expression before—it was usually followed by a severe ass-kicking.

  Still, he pushed her, hating the panicked edge he heard in his voice. “Answer me—are you hurt?”

  Sabrina tossed the gun onto the bed. Another bad sign. The last time she’d disarmed herself in front of him she’d rabbit-punched his kidneys so hard he’d pissed blood for three days. “No,” she said, crossing the room, her confident stride interrupted by a slight limp she tried hard to hide. Each footfall that brought her closer felt like a kick in the gut, a reminder of just how much his need for revenge had cost her. She reached past him to yank the curtains closed, letting her gaze drop to the envelope in his hand. “You went through my jacket.”

  “Sure did. Who’s Calliope?”

  Her eyes narrowed just a bit, enough for him to know he was pushing it. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that reading other people’s mail is rude?”

  He shrugged. “Nope. She was too busy fishing me out of the drunk tank and nursing me through withdrawal to sweat the small stuff. Who’s Calliope?”

  “I am,” she said, going for the envelope in his hand.

  He’d been afraid of that. He held it out of reach. “What does it say?”

  Her hand snapped out to latch onto the envelope and pull, but he held on. “Coming here was stupid.”

  “I know … and I’m getting a bit tired of repeating myself.”

  She pulled again, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing doesn’t usually come written in Latin, on handmade paper.”

  “Nothing or not, it’s got nothing to do with you.” She pulled again. This time he let her take it, suddenly very much aware that all that stood between them was ten inches of space and a bath towel.

  He shifted his gaze to the pile of clothes she’d left on the floor. “There’s blood on your jacket. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not mine,” she said without offering further explanation, stepping around him to get to the other side of the bed. There she picked up her SIG and stowed it in its holster before dropping it on the nightstand, the envelope along with it. “You didn’t come here to do a welfare check, O’Shea,” she said over her shoulder, giving him a side view of her face and neck as she rifled through the duffle on the bed before pulling out a flimsy wad of black fabric. “So what do you want?”

  Great question. One he didn’t have a ready answer for. Especially when what he wanted and what he was allowed to have were two completely different things. He took a mental step back, distancing himself from her and the messy tangle of emotion seeing her brought up. “I need to talk to you about—”

  He’d seen her naked before. Spent six weeks in this very room watching every move she made and he’d done it with an almost Zen-like level of detachment. He’d viewed her in parts—torso, shoulders, legs, back. She’d been a promise he’d made. A means to an end. Nothing more.

  This time, when she dropped the towel, he didn’t see parts—he saw her, and it was enough to stop him cold. “Jesus,” he hissed, averting his eyes to the lamp on the table next to her.

  “You came here to talk to me about Jesus?” she said as she wound her long wet hair into a bun, tucking its tail into the coil to hold it in place. Somehow, with her hair up, she seemed even more naked.

  Her tone drew his attention, and he found himself looking at her again. “No,” he said, nailing his gaze to hers. “I want to talk to you about Jaxon Croft,” his tone harder than he intended.

  She stepped into a pair of shorts, if you could call them that, smoothing them over her hips before she reached for the second wad of fabric and shook it out. Her full breasts swayed gently, drawing his attention for a split second before he looked away. He could see her movements in his peripheral as she gathered up what he hoped to God was a shirt and pulled it over her head.

  “Croft? What about him?” she said, drawing his attention again. This time she was clothed and settled on the bed, cross-legged, using the towel to squeeze excess water from her hair.

  “He was in Jessup a few weeks ago, asking questions about me. And you,” he said, coming around the side of the bed to stand in front of her.

  “I know,” she said, giving him a quick glance. “It started the day after I woke up in the hospital.” She arched an eyebrow at him, giving him a cynical smile. “He’s very … persistent.”

  “He follows you?”

  She leaned over and reached into her duffle, pulling out a comb. “Everywhere I go,” she said as she ran the comb through her long hair.

  He felt something ugly crawl around inside his chest. Something impulsive and ruthless. Something that’d lead him to put two in the back of Croft’s head without a moment’s hesitation if he let it go unchecked. “Has he approached you?”

  She stopped combing. “Approached? Has Croft approached me?” She shrugged. “I guess you could say that.”

  Something about her tone stiffened the back of his neck. “What did he say to you?”

  “Oh, you know—blah, blah, blah, I’m blackmailing you—blah, blah, blah.” She said it so nonchalantly that it took him a second to comprehend what she was saying.

  “Is Croft why you’re here instead of home?”

  She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to decide how much of her life was his business, and he was suddenly sure she’d tell him to mind his own. Instead she looked away, down at something on the nightstand. The note card he’d found in her jacket pocket. She shrugged. “Val asked me to leave,” she said, finally looking at him again. “Things have been … difficult for us since I’ve been back.” She said it like she’d been on a business trip instead of abducted and shot by her own half-brother. “But the situation with Croft certainly isn’t doing me any favors.”

  “What does he want?”

  She shrugged. “You. He’s got this silly idea that I know your deep, dark secrets and he’s given me thirty-six hours to decide who I’m going to throw under the bus: you or Strickland.” Despite her blasé attitude, he could see it. She was scared and pissed off—a dangerous combination where Sabrina was concerned.

  “I don’t understand. What did Strickland do?”

  She gave him a sad smile. “The usual. He trusted me.”

  He jammed his hands into his pockets while fighting to keep from looking away. “So … which one of us is getting run over?” Strickland was her partner. He’d stuck it out, risked his career to h
elp her. He’d been there for her in ways that Michael never had been and never could be. It was simple: Strickland had earned her loyalty; he hadn’t.

  “Neither of you. Croft gave me thirty-six hours to make up my mind. That’s all the time I need to make things right.”

  It took him a moment to realize what she was saying. Whatever her plan was, it ended with her in the lions’ den. He shook his head. “No. I won’t let you.”

  “Really? And just how are you going to stop me, O’Shea?” She chuckled a bit. “You can’t. Not without exposing yourself.”

  He said nothing, forcing his expression to remain neutral, but the look on Sabrina’s face told him that she knew him better than he’d hoped.

  “You can’t kill him.”

  He met her gaze, surprised by the level of urgency he found there. It’d never occurred to him that she might actually care about what happened to Croft. The thought made fighting his ugly impulses harder than he would’ve imagined. “I’m pretty sure I can.”

  She swiped a hand over her face before looking up at him. “If Croft turns up dead, I’m the first person who’s gonna get looked at. I have a perceived history of killing people who test my patience, remember?”

  He remembered. The last time they were together, bodies started dropping, and it was Sabrina who took the heat for it. Not something he’d be willing to risk again unless it was absolutely unavoidable. “Thirty-six hours? Why so long?” he said, lowering himself to the bed, cutting her a long look. “He’s got to know you’d find a way to wriggle off the hook.”

  “My guess? He’s hoping I use the time to call in the cavalry. Which is why your being here isn’t just a colossal waste of time, it also wasn’t your smartest move ever.” She set the comb aside and unfolded her legs, drawing her knees to her chest to prop her chin against them. “You should’ve phoned this one in, O’Shea. Or better yet, just trusted me to keep my mouth shut.”

  He sighed, running a rough hand over the top of his head. “I need to know what he knows. How much he’s been able to dig up on me. If FSS has sprung a leak, I need to find it before Livingston Shaw does.” Because if Croft could connect him to Sabrina, so could the person feeding him information. If Shaw found out about Croft and his source, she was as good as dead, or worse—much worse.

  Sabrina shrugged. “He’s not much of a sharer when it comes to you. All he’s told me is you’re not someone worth protecting.”

  Whatever Croft was, whatever he really wanted with Michael, the man was honest. He stared at her for a long moment, unsure of what to say. Finally he cleared his throat.

  “They never are, you know.”

  “Never what?” she said, tipping her face to rest her cheek against her knee.

  “My moves. They’re never smart when you’re involved.” He fought the urge to look away from her, focusing on the way her long lashes brushed against the pale skin of her leg. “You have a way of making me do the stupidest things.”

  Sabrina gave him a rueful smile. “I’d say I’m sorry, but it’d be a lie, considering one of those stupid moves saved my life,” she said, skewering him with a dark blue gaze that caused his heart to pound, fast and uneven, against his chest. “I know it was you that day in the woods, not Carson. You promised you’d find a way back to me, and you did. You saved me.”

  Her words gnawed at him, razor-sharp teeth that sank in a bit deeper every time he breathed. On impulse, he reached over and wrapped a hand around her ankle to pull her leg flat against the bed. The movement revealed the scar he’d only caught a glimpse of so far, a raised, silver-dollar sized knot of hard tissue punched into the top of her thigh, a long-line incision running through the middle of it. The bullet must’ve shattered and they’d had to operate.

  The second she realized what he was looking at, she tried to jerk her leg back, but he held on, keeping it straight.

  “Don’t,” he said quietly, running a slow hand up the length of her leg until it was parallel with her hip, skimming his fingers along the raised lump of rigid flesh. It was red, warm to the touch, as if it’d happened weeks ago instead of months. He imagined Wade standing over her, pulling the trigger. The terror and hopelessness she must’ve felt but would never admit to. “Whatever I did, it wasn’t enough.” It never was.

  He let his fingers glide, finding smooth skin as he traced a feather-light touch along the inside of her thigh. He could feel a slight tremble, a quivering in her muscle along with a sharp intake of breath, soft and slow as she let it out. She dropped a hand to cover his where he touched her and for a second he was unsure if she would pull him closer or push him away.

  “Michael, I—”

  He forced himself to stop, leaning forward until his forehead rested against hers, relishing the feel of her breath against his face for a moment before he pulled his hand from under hers and stood. “I should go.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, not at all surprised when her face fell into its usually guarded expression. “I’m staying across the hall, won’t be here for more than a few days. I’ll try to stay out of your way, and I’ll try my damnedest not to kill Croft while I’m here.” He felt his mouth quirk a bit.

  “Is that a promise?”

  He didn’t answer; just let his gaze drift to the note card on the nightstand beside her. Was it from a guy she was seeing? Probably that cop who had a thing for her, what was his name? Nickels. He’d looked like the kind of douche who’d write love letters in Latin. Just remembering his name was enough to make him homicidal.

  But what did he expect? He’d left her and the cop hadn’t. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had a choice or that he’d wished every second of every day that things could be different. The fact was, they weren’t and they never would be. She’d moved on. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t do the same.

  He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the bitter lump that’d settled there. “Goodnight,” he said, forcing himself to finally turn and walk out the door.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The moment her door clicked closed, Sabrina let out a shuttering breath. She saw herself jumping up and flinging it open, pulling him back in. Asking him to stay. Instead she drew her leg up to her chest, pressing her scar into her hip bone, harder and harder until the pressure brought pain.

  It’s just as well darlin’. Three’s a crowd …

  Standing, she went to the window and opened the curtain. She could see her house in the distance. Knew her family was there, tucked away safely. Nick would make sure of that.

  Val had been wrong, Nickels wasn’t Sabrina’s chance at being happy. If she hadn’t known it then, she knew it now. She was in love with Michael, which meant there would be no happy ending for her. Not ever.

  She looked down, hadn’t even realized she’d picked it up until she saw it. The card, clutched in her fist. She turned it over in her hands; saw the elegant, rust-colored lettering:

  Calliope

  This was who she was. Not happy. Not normal. She would never get to be those things. This was what she was. What she was allowed to have—death and blood. She ran her fingers over the rust-colored lettering.

  Blood …

  Revelation jolted her into action, and she turned toward the bed and her backpack, sitting on the floor beside it. Most cops carried tools of the trade with them everywhere they went, and she was no different. Dumping her backpack out onto the bed, it all tumbled out—gloves and booties, evidence bags and markers … and a blood-collection kit. She plucked the long plastic tube from the pile and snapped the thin inner tube inside of it, releasing the chemicals, allowing them to mix together and saturate the swab before removing the red rubber cap. She ran the swab lightly over the envelope, across the lettering. The end of it instantly turned a bluish green. Blood.

  She took pity on her knees and sank down, perching on the edge of the bed before they collapsed beneath her. The killer had written
to her in blood. It was too much to hope that he’d used his own or that his DNA was stored in CODIS. No, not his own—he was too smart for that. Maybe Bethany Edwards? His next victim? Did that mean she’d been wrong? That he’d not only chosen his next muse but that he’d already taken her?

  She felt the unbearable weight of helplessness drag her under, rob her of the hope that she’d find the woman in time. That she’d be able to save a faceless girl whose only mistake had been to be found worthy of sacrifice. She let it hold her down for a second, let herself feel it and the urgency and resolve it brought. Even if she failed, she would try.

  She stood, intent on … what? Getting dressed? Storming out and driving to the station? And then what? Turn over the evidence she’d been withholding in an investigation she had no business pursuing? There were a few techs in CSU who would do her a favor no questions asked, but she’d killed enough careers for one day. No, she needed to think this through.

  Her field test only confirmed her suspicions that the killer had used blood as ink, not who it belonged to, or even if it was human. She needed a lab for that—fortunately she knew where to get one without causing further damage to anyone but herself.

  Fishing her cell from her coat pocket, she dialed and listened to it ring. The phone was answered on the fourth ring, but for a moment all she heard was the muffled wail of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

  “Sweet Jesus … ” she muttered. She should’ve known he was on leave. She almost hung up.

  “Hello?” Ben said.

  She let out a sigh, lowering herself onto the bed. “In church again, I see.”

  “I do love a good sermon,” Ben said with a laugh. “I take it our boy made it safely.”

  “Would’ve been nice to have gotten a warning he was coming.”

  “Yeah? Then stop ignoring my phone calls.” The din of loud music and giggling strippers faded away, followed by the distinct clap of a door being pulled closed. “I’ve called you a few thousand times since I dropped him off.”